Introduction

In this post we continue to look at the lessons game designers need to take onboard, as we all move to making games for virtual reality. You can see my previous article; Be Careful With Me – which tackled looking after the five foot something, games playing, vulnerable, occasionally dizzy sack of water we now have almost complete control over. This post concentrates more on the hardware. Specifically, I want to talk about using phones, and to some degree tablets.

For the foreseeable future, phones are going to be the common way to access Virtual Reality. Premium experiences on consoles and PCs, particularly the latter, will remain exactly that because of one component which will remain so close to the forefront of technology, it’ll force prices to sit at the upper edge affordability — the screen.

I can no longer tell the difference between individual pixels on my phone. That’s not a ‘retina’ measure at arm’s length — that’s eyes up as close as I can focus! In fact, I couldn’t on my previous phone, which had half as many pixels. However, in a VR headset, which is essentially two microscopes, even subpixels become all too apparent.

Consider that a typical viewing angle for cinema is 35 degrees. If you slot a 1080p phone into a VR headset which gives it a stereo, 90 degree field of view, your virtual cinema screen will treat each eye to a moving image running at below VGA resolution! If you want to enjoy a 4K 3D film, in VR, your phone screen will need to be around 25,000 pixels wide!

Of course, you can get a 4K film with a 4K screen, or a stereo 4K film with two, but that sort of clarity with a VR FOV requires much, much more. Most people will only want the expense of one such screen in their life. People are happy to pay for a cutting edge phone — in fact, they’ve already got one — so that’s where the screen they need is.

I’m Not Ready Yet!

Presenting a VR experience on a device which is not primarily designed for VR, requires compromise. If you’re reading this on your phone, you’re probably doing so in a regular, 2D browser. That’s the default view for your device, and exactly how I expect you to come to my 3D VR game.

At some point, I will pass you over to stereo view which works in your device’s headset. I know I won’t do this immediately, because that means I won’t own the experience of that crossover. So where do we put it?

Well, it depends. There are some features which require a 2D view. If your experience features any of these, you will need to begin your game with a traditional menu. These feature fall into two categories.

You wish to offer a 2D/mono view — VR mode can only be used by people with VR glasses. If you want to include everyone else, you need to offer a 2D mode of play. Typically this will involve the player holder their device at arm’s length and turning around to control the application. See “My phone is Actually a Tablet” below.

You wish to show screens which are beyond your ability to easily place in 3D space, or would be difficult to control in 3D space — Commonly for us, this means the high score screen. It’s just about achievable to place high score functionality in VR (see “I have no Buttons”), but that’s exponentially more difficult if you’re using Game Centre on Android or iOS. You have screens provided for a standardised user flow — use them; use them in 2D.

If either of these describe your game, you’re now beginning with a 2D menu up front. You also need to consider that all the 2D functionality should be put there, so the user doesn’t have to move their device in and out their headset more than they have to — including not visiting the 2D menu between lives, levels, or rounds.

If these do not describe your app, you can begin with 2D loading, and a 2D readiness screen (which may be the same screen) which tells the user to place their phone in a cardboard device or similar. Show the readiness message in portrait, then replace with VR mode once the device is rotated to landscape.

My Phone is Actually a Tablet

Your VR games should be playable on tablets. Lots of people own tablets. Tablets can offer an analogous experience to VR on phones thusly — 2D at arm’s length. It’s like a personal planetarium! In fact, if you don’t own a VR headset, 2D on a tablet is the next best solution.

This is a very nice way to play games. In fact, it can work, less well, on phone screens too. Go over to the YouTube app on your phone or tablet, and search for “360 degree video” and try it out. I think they show too much of the frame at once, particularly for a phone, so you get a slight fish-eyeing — it’s still a nice effect though.

Most VR games play at around 100 degrees, but on tablets you want closer to 60. If you care to detect for phones and your experience can lose some scene without hurting the gameplay, 35. That’s still a lot higher than you can see, but a compromise between realism and playing a game without severe tunnel vision. With the actual universe in the user’s periphery, you can afford to narrow the field of a view a little more, without making them nauseous.

I have no Buttons

You user’s headset might not have any buttons (rare), or it might have a button which is so unresponsive it cannot be used during games (considerably less rare).

The first Google Cardboard used a magnet as a switch. It was horrible and not terribly reliable. New Cardboards, and most similar devices, tap the screen. That’s faster and more reliable, but you wouldn’t trust your life with it — not even a virtual life, in a virtual environment, in virtual reality.

If you’re designing for Google Cardboard (as a platform, regardless of actual headset), you should be trusting there is a button that is fine for menus, but no good for time sensitive functions. You never want a game’s difficulty to be a product of the input method — it would make the user feel as though they’re fighting with you. My common solution is to rely on the user to stare at a button for around a second (adjusted per experience) to fill up a timer circling the reticle, to initiate the related action. It takes longer than a button press, but it’s a reliable time by which we can balance the game.

No Taskbars, Thanks

iOS and Android have a status bar at the top of the screen. Android may also have an action bar at the bottom of the screen. These are not welcome in stereo 3D! It may seem obvious, but it needs saying. I wouldn’t show either of these (without swiping up for Android’s action bar) on any game, but it’s incredibly important for VR — and I’ve seen games made for high profile brands fall over here!

If one of these bars is shown while in VR, it resizes the screen. The user takes a small hit to the correct field of view they set up for their device, a larger hit to the position of the centre of the screen which should be exactly between their eyes, and a massive hit to what’s happening in their periphery. One of these bars displayed while in VR mode, puts a bright object to the outside edge of one of the user’s eyes, which burns a purple rhombus onto the back of their retina!

It’s incredibly uncomfortable.

Let Me Hear You

Most VR games run on phones, and most phones normally have media volume low or off while headphones are out. Assume people are playing games without headphones — that means they’ve got their device in a headset with volume down. It’s a pain to come out of the game, take your phone out, up the volume, find it changed the ringer volume (!), correct it to have media volume back up, re-insert your device, and put the headset back on.

Most VR headsets don’t have volume buttons, so you need to build to avoid this eventuality. If the volume is very low or off, prompt the user and ask them if the want it turning up. If they do, do it in the game — either set it comfortably, give them the option of ‘loud enough’ or ‘louder still’, or give them a slider to move.

If you have a 2D menu at the start of the game, this can be more simply solved with a message, or message and slider. If you’re making your game for a platform which doesn’t allow access to volume control. A message at the start is all you can manage.

You Don’t Know Where I Am!

Don’t make people turn all the way round regularly, unless they have positional control. Android and iOS devices normally only track rotations. Within a VR universe on a phone, you’re locked to a point at the centre of your head. You can turn and look anywhere, and you can also expect to have some input system for moving within the world, but lateral movement is not measured. This limits the sort of games you can put on a phone, which would be otherwise fine on a premium VR system which tracks movement within a space.

The slight disconnect between the way you move your head in real life, and the way your phone game reacts, creates motion sickness. The sickness is a product of movement, so only affects games where the user is asked to move a lot. The comfort and stability of a swivel chair can vastly reduce this, but they’re not as common in people’s homes as they are in the office where you’re testing your software! In a house, the only space someone can turn around in safely while wearing a headset, is often the kitchen — stood up.

If people are using a joypad, they can sit down, so you can expect them to turn more often. Did you require your users to connect a joypad? You will reduce how many people will play your app, but you may improve the experience for those who do.

A lot of the design decisions you have to make for a new platform that works across many slightly different pieces of hardware, is where to put the cut off for compatibility — if you want more people to play it, you need to build for a lesser system, so you will restrict your design.

Constraint can drive creativity. Try not to block people from trying Virtual Reality. It sells itself very well, but markets itself poorly.

About The Author

Sean Thompson Producer

8 years at Dubit and 14 years in Game Design, Programming and Production. Degree with Honours in Games, Virtual Reality, and Simulation.

Introduction

Dear game designer,

You’ve been working with a flat rectangle for years now. It might be high contrast and have a decent dot pitch, but it’s got a pitiful field of view and it’s all the way over there! I’m not about to tell you to forget everything you know about games design, as you make the move to designing games in virtual reality – it’s all still pertinent. You do have some new things to learn though.

Just as you design different for phones than windowed games on PCs or full screen console games, so you need to for Virtual Reality games. This one’s a fairly large jump.

This, first in a series of posts, contains lessons learnt through our own error. We’ve been making games and telling stories on screens for years, but we’ve never had to change they way we think about conveying information so quickly as right now – as we transition to building games for VR.

Oculus have documentation on best practises, and it’s a good read (if long), but doesn’t convey the weight of certain requirements. We’re compiling this list as we find and solve problems, so you don’t have to. These all result from issues we’ve found while building games for VR, which would never have been a problem on a 2D screen.

Part 1 deals with comfort. Without good comfort, you limit the player to a maximum of around 20 minutes of play time. That’s not long enough to retain someone, so your game will have difficulty being anything beyond a novelty unless you can ensure players are happy being in your world.

Don’t Tire Me

Position the world for comfort. The player’s natural position should be looking at the horizon – within about 8 degrees of horizontal. Making them look up can be particularly tiring for them.

Under certain circumstances, VR games can work well looking down at a field of action -looking down can actually relieve the pressure of having a headset rest on the user’s nose – but you should give the player plenty of occasion to look back up to the horizontal.

If you are designing a game which requires a bird’s-eye view for the player, consider placing the action far forward, so the user only needs to look down slightly. Alternatively, rotate the world so that the area of play appears to be on the wall in front of the player, and so gravity falls away forwards. A 90 degree rotation makes the new horizon line clear.

Look After My Eyes

Begin games by allowing people to get their eyes in, with nothing close to the screen.

It can take a few seconds to get the 3D effect working on a VR headset – particularly on cheaper devices or when they’re running of a small phone screen. If you’re an end user, you can try looking at something in the distance to get the effect, then back at the foreground action. If you’re a game designer, try to build this into the design.

The key is to avoid foreground action. You can’t change the focal distance – that’s down to the hardware – but you will affect the eyes’ divergence. The closer you get to ocular infinity, the more relaxed the user will be. A sky or landscape is best, but even the back wall of a large room is normally fine – aim for the centre 15 degree cone having nothing appearing to be nearer to the user than around 4 metres.

Don’t Give Me a Headache

Do not make the scene too busy. We do not have the resolution, framerate or field of view to allow the sort of high contrast and high motion scenes in VR people can stand in real life.

We can track an object clearing a 90 degree VR FOV in around 0.2 seconds, as long as it follows a predictable path. We’re pretty fast, but that’s the limit and it’s not relaxing. It’s also not possible to track something that’s moving randomly that fast. Our reaction time is similar (a little less if there’s an audio cue, a little more if not), so consider building that time in on every sharp change of direction. That’s a good start point, and decent figures to base level design on, but it doesn’t quite get us to something relaxing.

We’ll also assume we have a slightly slow reaction time of a quarter of a second. Let’s consider that the cone of comfort is 15 degrees, that people are comfortable moving their eyes within a cone of 30 degrees for extended periods without tiring, and double again to a 60 degree cone for limited time. Given most VR headsets offer a FOV of a little more than 90 degrees, we can estimate the user’s reaction to objects taking different times to move entirely across the display.

Don’t Make Me Nauseous

Make sure you transition between game states in a way which doesn’t make the player dizzy. No hard teleports – ie, no single frame translations or rotations. That goes for everything in the scene, not just the player – in fact, it’s more important for other objects in the scene. Sudden movements are seen like flashing lights to the user. Flashing lights are tiring.

Sometimes you have to teleport the user. It’s unavoidable. It’s good to design the game so users can move from one place to another, but you will find times where that just gets in the way if the game mechanic, of the story, or just isn’t technically feasible. If you’re in that position, try to stick to these rules

The player should expect the change. Selecting to begin a game, or go to another menu, or having just completed a level will achieve this.

The transition should be slow. A fade to black then back up seems to be the most comfortable. But a crossfade or other tween could be made to work well if used with point 3.

Put the player somewhere similar. At the very least, that means they’re the same way up! The further you push this idea though, the less you need to lean on point 2. If you’re careful with the scene, you could approach a match cut.

For objects in the scene, it’s really a question of acceleration. Make everything feel heavy. I’m going to assume you’re building your game in something that comes with 3D physics, so try not to circumvent it.

If the player is standing (ie, needs to turn around freely), not holding a joypad, looking up repeatedly or for large periods of time, and/or there’s a requirement for vertical movement in the game, they are at a higher risk of nausea.

Let Me Be Free!

Try not to restrict the player’s rotation. It feels very freeing at first, to allow the user to look anywhere in a scene by matching helmet direction to game view. In some games though, particularly space or flying games, this makes the player feel as though their progress in the game is limited by real world gravity. It’s a disappointing limitation, and and goes against a rule of games design in general – not to make a game difficult with its control, but with its content.

It’s difficult for a human to look straight up for a prolonged period or turn around quickly, because we’re not owls. Be prepared to re-orient to the world (or turn the spacecraft) while the player is looking away from straight forwards. It’s important this be done relative to the player’s gaze from centre, rather than triggered at a threshold, if you don’t want to create something that’s difficult to control and dizzying.

Aim for a dead zone that creates a 15 degree cone straight forwards. Between there and the limits of a 60 degree cone, linearly increase the speed the player rotates. Beyond that cone, cap the rotation speed to prevent suddenly spinning the player at points where they might not have best control of their balance. The actual speed you rotate the player will vary greatly between games, and gamer ability, and you may need to tweak figures given above.

About The Author

Sean Thompson Producer

8 years at Dubit and 14 years in Game Design, Programming and Production. Degree with Honours in Games, Virtual Reality, and Simulation.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2016/02/19/vr-design-for-game-designers-pt1/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2016/02/19/vr-design-for-game-designers-pt1/Pricing and Monetization Trends for Kids Games on the App Storehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/FEzFcWm5Nwc/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2015/01/16/pricing-and-monetization-trends-for-kids-games-on-the-app-store/#commentsFri, 16 Jan 2015 10:00:01 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5123Read More...]]>Smartphones and tablets have changed the games industry. The most popular games are free and in-app purchases are mainstream. But is this the case with children’s games? To find out we’ve combed Apple’s App Store to see the affect free-to-play has had on games for young children and to provide a guide to how to price your children’s mobile game or app.

You can view our report on the kids’ app market below. Below that is a copy of an interview we’ve done with Kidscreen on kids’ mobile games and in-app payments. We go into our report in more detail and suggest the most effective ways to monetize mobile games for young children.

KS: Can you tell me a bit about the main findings of the study? Were there any trends that emerged?

Dubit: When most people think about mobile apps and games they tend to think that they all have to be given away for free to be success, with in-app payments used to bring in revenue. What we found with our study into kids’ apps was that this couldn’t be further from the truth when designing apps for young children. For each of the three age groups we looked at, the majority of the highest grossing apps were paid for, with many costing more than $2.99. For instance, for nine to elevens only 10% of the highest grossing apps were free! This would be unheard of outside of the kids section, some paid-for apps also used IAP (in-app purchases) but they were the minority.

KS: From your research, are more paid kids app being downloaded? Or more free apps? Why do you think that is?

Dubit: Because of the closed nature of the App Store it isn’t possible for us to see download numbers. Instead we focused on the apps appearing in the Highest Grossing charts as revenue is better signifier of success than download numbers. What is clear is that unlike apps for all ages, kids apps can break into the Highest Grossing chart without having to be given away for free.

There are a number of reasons why this might be. It could stem from parents seeing the value in a paid-for app for their children, as they may not want them buying (or asking for) in-app purchases. Also, many of the highest grossing apps either use a popular IP or have an educational focus – both allow for premium pricing. It’s also possible that parents will pay more for things, including apps, for their children but not for themselves. We’re sure that many of the parents paying over $2 for a mobile app for their child would never pay more than 99c for one for themselves.

KS: According to your research, how many kids apps have In App Purchases (IAPs)?

Dubit: We studied three age groups, under 5, six to eight, and nine to eleven. We also examined the ‘all kids’ section that encompasses all the age groups. For all the groups in-app purchases existed in fewer than half of the games appearing in the Highest Grossing chart. For apps in the six to eight and nine to eleven categories it was under 25%. With all three age groups combined, looking over 150 apps, only one third included IAP.

It’s worth noting that sometimes the apps in the study monetized through both in-app purchases and a download charge, but they are in the minority with only 10% monetizing this way.

KS: What is the concern with IAPs in kids apps?

Dubit: For games not specifically designed for children the fear around IAP seems to be based on children spending vast sums of real money on virtual items. Although the risk was low it brought a lot of media attention and led to both Apple and Google changing their IAP policies. We examined parents attitudes to IAP at the end of 2013. This, combined with heightened awareness, has helped to curb the issue. But IAP in games featured in the Kids section is very different than IAP featured in other games.

KS: How are IAPs for kids different from purchases in games?

Dubit: IAPs for apps in the Kids section of the App Store tend to be focused on the purchase of additional content, such as extra books, packs of stickers and expansions to the app. This is quite different to the type of IAP we’re used to as adults, getting hassled to buy lives in Candy Crush or doughnuts in the Simpsons game. Part of this is down to responsible developing, part is down to restrictions on how ‘Kids’ apps must behave to be in that section of the store, and part is down to the type of games young children play. Ultimately children under ten don’t want to play ‘click and create’ games, they want a more open playtime so being hassled every minute for in-game currency doesn’t work.

There’s also the key difference of IAP in games appearing in the kids’ section of the store not being consumable, so there’s a limit put on the user’s spend. If an app in the Kids’ section has five books to buy through IAP for $1 each then that user can only ever spend $5 in that app. Compare that to a a popular game like Candy Crush, the potential to spend is unlimited.

KS: What was the average price point for the apps? Why do you think that price is so popular?

Dubit: The average price point is $2.99, which is high enough to appear premium without being so high that it looks expensive. It’s the price used by Toca Boca and the Peppa Pig games so it’s also possible that it’s the popularity of these brands, rather than the popularity of the price point, that makes it so prevalent. However, these apps and others in this bracket very rarely used IAP, only 3% did. So for $2.99 the parent is buying a complete product. Compare that to apps priced at $1.99 and 99c, 16% and 17% of these price points respectively also use IAP.

KS: How does age affect pricing?

Dubit: Age didn’t affect pricing as much as we expected. For under 5s and nine to eleven year-olds the most popular price point was between 1.99, $2.99, whereas the peak for six-to-eights was at $3.99-$4.99. Apps aimed at nine-eleven year-olds had the lowest proportion of free apps in the highest grossing chart.

KS: What role does education play in determining price?

Dubit: Many apps in the highest grossing charts have an overtly educational title, although we don’t know if this is the reason why they’re placed so high. For instance, around a quarter of the most successful apps in our study featured terms like ‘phonics’, ‘maths’, and ‘ABCs’ in their title. Away from the more overtly educational titles, the majority of successful kids apps contain some form of educational benefit, whether that’s matching colors or learning sums. The same could be said for much of kids entertainment.

KS: Are there any tips you have for developers looking to create a monetization strategy for their apps?

Dubit: To begin with, if you’re developing for young children you shouldn’t be afraid to charge for your app, especially if it’s aligned with a known brand. But it’s not possible to have one rule for all children’s apps, the strategy has to match not only the market but also the app.

As a general rule we advise our clients to consider children’s apps as a hub, or a storefront for your future apps and games. It’s much easier to suggest new apps or content within an existing app then to expect the child or parent to find new ones in the App Store, especially if you’re not working with a recognised IP.

KS: Where do you think pricing will go? Will there be more IAPs in the future?

Dubit: We expect to continue to see a range of pricing strategies on the kids’ section of the App Store and also an increase in IAP as discoverability becomes a bigger issue. discoverability is already a challenge and it’s one of the reasons why games sell expansions, such as extra levels or books. Creating an excellent hub-app allows your brand to become the destination parents and children go to for more games, rather than the App Store. It’s what apps like the hugely popular Disney apps, Disney Junior Play, Disney Storytime and Disney Princess: Story Theater are doing already.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2015/01/16/pricing-and-monetization-trends-for-kids-games-on-the-app-store/feed/1http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2015/01/16/pricing-and-monetization-trends-for-kids-games-on-the-app-store/Highlights from Ofcom’s Global Media and Communications Reporthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/cOyVVq1BZ6Q/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/22/highlights-from-ofcoms-global-media-and-communications-report/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2014 13:02:12 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5115Read More...]]>Mid-December saw Ofcom release their Global Media and Communications report. The report compares the UK’s media and communications activity with that of the rest of the world, it’s quite detailed and very long. If you want to read it for yourself you can do so here. To save time we’ve picked out a few of our favourite charts, specifically related to the mobile market. These charts don’t relate to mobile use by children, but it does provide valuable insight into the country they’re growing up and the behaviour of their parents, who often hold the digital purse strings.

Despite all the attention paid to tablet devices, in the UK they rank below smartphones, laptops, and desktops for ownership. In the report Ofcom states: “In the US and the UK average time spent browsing on a laptop or desktop has fallen significantly since 2012: time spent browsing on these devices fell by nine hours per user in the US and seven hours per user in the UK. This may be due to users in these countries substituting mobile browsing for laptop/desktop browsing.

“The laptop and desktop active audience is getting older in our comparator countries. People aged over 55 made up the largest proportion of laptop and desktop users in most of our comparator countries. In the UK, a quarter of users (25%) were over 55, up two percentage points since August 2013.”

Proportion of respondents who have ever made a mobile payment, by type of goods purchased

It’s worth noting that this data comes from all respondents with a mobile phone/smartphone. As displayed in the previous chart, only 63% of the UK population own a smartphone.

China’s use of mobile purchases eclipses every other nation in the survey. Excluding China the UK’s use of mobile purchasing is on par with other countries in the report, except for Italy.

People in the UK are more likely to purchase digital goods (games, music, films) through a mobile device than they are to purchase physical and ‘real life’ goods. However, only 16% of UK mobile/smartphone owners have ever purchased a digital good through their phone!

Type of mobile payment used for non-digital services

For non-digital services no one method of mobile payment outperforms another, with buyers as likely to have used a QR code as they are to have used an NFC reader or app.

Type of mobile payment used for non-digital goods

For non-digital goods apps and mobile websites are the most popular purchasing method, but both are rarely used.

Types of AV content watched on a mobile phone

By large mobile AV consumption is focused on short video clips, with fewer than 10% of mobile phone owners watching longer-form content.

Types of AV content watched on a tablet

Short video clips are still the most watched AV content on tablets, but consumption of video-on-demand and live TV all more than double. Catch-up TV sees the biggest rise, with the UK leading the world (except for China) for catch-up TV viewing on tablets. This is probably helped by the popularity of services like iPlayer and 4oD in the UK.

Use of a smartphone/mobile phone to consume audio content

31% of mobile owners in the UK use their phone to listen to music they own and only 14% use it to stream audio. While this may seem low it’s on par with the likes of France, Germany and Japan. Spain, Italy and America lead for mobile audio streaming.

Want to know more? Sign up for our weekly This Week in Youth Insight newsletter! Each issue acts as a weekly digest of the most insightful stories published that week on children and the entertainment they enjoy. Sign up for This Week in Youth Insight.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/22/highlights-from-ofcoms-global-media-and-communications-report/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/22/highlights-from-ofcoms-global-media-and-communications-report/Breaking Down Ofcom’s Report on Kids’ Media Consumptionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/U1Vswqf-8Dw/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/19/ofcom-kids-media-2014/#commentsFri, 19 Dec 2014 16:41:35 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5086Read More...]]>On Monday Ofcom released their third review of public service broadcasting, examining the public’s consumption of public service broadcasting channels (TV and radio) and their competitors. We’ve examined the report, picked our top findings and charts, and summarised them below, paying specific attention to young people’s media consumption, both digital and traditional. If you want to read the whole document you can get it here.

This graph highlights the growth and decline of media devices, including Digital TV, MP3 players, and E-readers. Smartphones have now been taken up by more than 60% of households while MP3 players have declined to below 35%.

Average Minutes of Daily TV Viewing, All Channels, by age, 2004-2013

Children’s time spent viewing TV has always been below that of adults but now it’s dropped from a high of 151 daily minutes recorded in 2010 to 134 today. Since 2004, the last time it was this low was 2006 when it dropped to 132 minutes. Minutes consumed by 16-24 year-olds has followed an identical pattern.

VoD Service Used at Least Monthly

Of those adults that use VoD (video on demand) services at least once a month, BBC iPlayer is the most used by far. Netflix is now used by 29% of adult VoD users.

Change in TV Viewing per day, by age; 2010-2013

TV viewing has dropped the most for children and adults aged 16-24. Ofcom is quick to point out that mobile phone ownership and home internet access are much lower for the older demographic. For instance, while 88% of 16-24s own a smartphone that number drops to 14% for those aged 65 and over, as well only 50% of 65s and over have home internet compared to 82% of UK adults.

Weekly Radio Listening Hours, by age Group: 2003-2013

People aged 15-24 are listening to radio less than any other age group, now averaging two hours a day.

Tech Natives

Ofcom has coined ‘Tech Natives’ as the younger demographic (16-30) whose audio-visual content is often consumed online. Less than half of this group consider TV as their most important source of relaxation and entertainment.

The Generation Gap’s Affect on PBS Consumption

Ofcom summarise their findings concerning PBS channel consumption, the age gaps and under-35’s preference for BBC Three and Channel 4.

Volume of Hours of First-run Original Children’s Programming, all day: 2008-2013

The number of hours devoted to first-run original children’s programming has fallen massively since 2002 (CBeebies and CBBC launched). The biggest drops coming from ITV, Channel 5 and BBC channels not dedicated to children’s programming.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/19/ofcom-kids-media-2014/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/19/ofcom-kids-media-2014/The Best Mobile Gaming Stories of 2014: Part 2http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/sDCLEEin5e8/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/18/the-best-mobile-gaming-stories-of-2014-part-2/#commentsThu, 18 Dec 2014 15:31:08 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5075Read More...]]>What a year it’s been for mobile games. When it began we were using our phones to become best friends with Kim Kardashian and by the end we were strapping them to our face to experience the wonders of virtual reality. To mark the end of 2014 we’re bringing together the ten best stories from the past six months (we did the first six months earlier in the year).

These articles are the most popular stories featured in our This Week in Mobile Games newsletter, providing insight on how topics including Kim Kardashian became the biggest name in mobile gaming, trends in monetization, design tips from the ‘best worst game of the year’, and plenty of info on app store optimisation and user acquisition.

If you haven’t signed-up for TWICG yet, click here and get the week’s most insightful casual game articles sent to your inbox in one handy weekly email.

During his talk at this year’s F2P Summit Vili Lehdonvirta of the University of Oxford dared to criticize Supercell for their inability to include player-to-player economies in Hay Day. According to Lehdonvirta player-to-player economies can improve a game’s retention and make a developer’s life much easier. Find out what he said by visiting Pocket Gamer.

Who’d have thought that Kim Kardashian would become a mobile gaming celeb in 2014? It caught many by surprise, as did the claim that the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game would make $200m before the end of the year! To find out why we become a virtual socialite and uncovered seven reasons for the game’s unexpected success. Head over to the Dubit blog to find out more.

Our readers couldn’t get enough of Kim in 2014. Our third most popular story was also about her breakout game, this time it was a story about a journalist from Jezebel spending $494 on in-app purchases, and her thoughts about the game. Find out what went on by visiting Jezebel.

Near the end of the year Pocket Gamer asked its monetization mavens to name the games which caught their eye the most in terms of how they integrate monetisation with user experience. It’s an interesting list that ranges from Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff to Clash of Clans and Hearthstone. Check out the full list at Pocket Gamer.

With the App Store being the most popular place for app discovery it’s no surprise that articles on app store optimisation were popular this year. This article included advice on app store icon design direct from Apple, taken from a report by Apple UX Evangelist, Mike Stern. The article covers what makes a good icon and goes on to provide six important points to consider, such as colour, shape and photos. Check out the full guide at TNW.

Most free-to-play games sell some sort of premium currency, whether they’re gems, donuts, gold, or berries. In this popular post Wolfgang analyses the premium currency tricks and trends found in 32 popular games on the App Store. They include a lack of variety in pricing, publishers fibbing about the most popular purchases, and why buying the most expensive currency pack isn’t always the best option. Read all of Wolfgang’s findings on the All Work All Play blog.

It’s been called ‘the best worst game in the world’ and ‘the anti-flappy bird’. Whatever you call it, Desert Golf, with 80s-style graphics and procedurally generated courses is an additively simple game that’s winning over casual and hardcore gamers. In an interview with game’s developer the Guardian looked at the secret to its success and the novel design decisions that separate it from the crowd.

It’s widely understood that it takes a month’s worth of metrics before you can tell how well your game is performing. But according to Jon Walsh of Fuse Powered there are some metrics that can be seen within the first 48 hours. In a post for Games Brief, Walsh explains his maths and provides a number of equations that could help you rate your game’s chances for success in the first two days. Read the full article at GamesBrief.

We’ve got another article on app store optimisation, this time from Gamasutra. Written by Szilard Szasz-Toth it details how you can make your apps easy to find and the importance of difficulty scores. Read it at Gamasutra.

Pixelberry Studios début game, High School Story, stayed in the top 100 grossing chart for a year! So it’s no surprise that this feature written by their CEO Oliver Miao proved popular. In it Miao shares his top tips for launch marketing and user acquisition. Click here to read it.

Want to know more? Sign up for our weekly newsletter! Each issue includes our four favourite casual gaming articles of the week, along with great presentations to watch and Twitter accounts to follow. All for free and sent to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up to This Week in Casual Games here.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/18/the-best-mobile-gaming-stories-of-2014-part-2/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/12/18/the-best-mobile-gaming-stories-of-2014-part-2/Inspiring Creativity: The Development of Night Zookeeperhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/r2JIDATMvd4/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/10/23/inspiring-creativity-the-development-of-night-zookeeper/#commentsThu, 23 Oct 2014 11:00:48 +0000Josh Davidsonhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5058Read More...]]>This is a guest post by Josh Davidson, founder and MD at Night Zookeeper. Their game, Night Zookeeper is a new online game that looks to inspire children to create, whilst being a free game with no advertising.

Night Zookeeper is a story about a young zookeeper exploring a strange Night Zoo and encountering magical animals. Eventually, the zookeeper must battle the evil Lord of Nulth, who has declared war on imagination. Children unlock pages of this story with their own creative illustrations and parents can reward them via email as they go. Night Zookeeper was developed with consultancy from Dubit.

In developing the game we drew inspiration from our in-school user testing with approximately 10,000 children, refining a series of prompts to get them excited and flexing their creative muscles. On top of this an additional 25,000 children in the UK, Canada, USA, Japan and South Africa have given feedback on the game after playing it.

Alongside the website, Night Zookeeper sends parents weekly, curriculum linked educational activities that children can complete away from their computer screens. Kids also receive stickers, a poster and a t-shirt in the post for a monthly subscription of £5 (US$7.99).

I’d like to use this post to talk you through three key parts of the game’s development: how we decided on the correct business model, how and why to implement parental sharing and how to inspire creativity.Deciding on the Right Business Model

Before development we surveyed parents and found that their preference was for no advertising, no in-app purchases and for the game to be free. Obviously this isn’t a sustainable business mode so we had to find a compromise. To do this we looked at the emotional response to the terms ‘website subscription’ and ‘joining a fan club’. There was a huge preference towards ‘fan club’ so that’s what we went with, whilst also offering a one-time payment option. We believe the advantage to this model is that parents know exactly how much the game will cost and don’t need to worry about their children seeing advertising in the game.

The business will be parent led. If parents embrace Night Zookeeper, share it with their children and their friends, then I genuinely believe an honest and responsible approach to children’s games is possible.

Kids Needs to Share, but With Their Parents

Night Zookeeper is for 6-9 year olds. This is a transition period in the lives of children, which has typically been identified as a time when they try to step out from their parents shadows. Parental involvement in ‘their game’ is therefore a quite controversial issue and needs to be carefully considered, as even a glance at the popular apps and games for children in this age group, reveals that family entertainment isn’t top of the list.

However common sense tells us that whenever a human being is proud of something, they want to share it with their parents and early data on our site, which we tested with over 25,000 kids around the world, shows that, when given the choice, a staggering 87% of children opted to share the creative work that they made in Night Zookeeper with their parents.

Parents can then decide whether to reward their children in the game, giving them a chance to play along in a very hands-off way. This is a form of digital, helicopter parenting, but done in a very positive way that encourages safety online.Something that is typically very hard to do in digital games as has been well documented.

In order to make an educational game as appealing to kids as a pure entertainment one we knew that we had to get parents involved. Hopefully our game does that in a balanced way for the kids and the parents.

How to Inspire Creativity

The whole point of Night Zookeeper is to inspire creativity; to get kids writing and drawing their own stories again, and to add value to creative play through technology, rather than distract from it.

From visiting classrooms we found that evidence of stifled imaginations all the time. One of the most overt signs (although it has many causes) is kids leaning over to copy their friends drawings because they aren’t comfortable expressing themselves.

That is why we developed the site so that kids can see lots and lots of other children’s artwork, of all standards and varieties, straight away. It helps them understand the range of possibilities so that they don’t just feel like they have to copy what the kids next to them have done.

Asking children the right questions at the right time, and giving them positive reinforcement as they go, are both important and have informed our development. We also look to build confidence. Some missions, such as imagining and drawing a ‘Thingamabob’ that can turn light into laughter, are far too abstract for some children when they first join the site. Therefore we start them designing a pattern or drawing the zoo gates. By the end, they can draw the ocean without the colour blue.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/10/23/inspiring-creativity-the-development-of-night-zookeeper/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/10/23/inspiring-creativity-the-development-of-night-zookeeper/Kids Tell us why They Love Kim Kardashian: Hollywoodhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/d8gcGngUYuY/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/09/25/why-kids-love-kim-kardashian-hollywood/#commentsThu, 25 Sep 2014 12:56:30 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=5016Read More...]]>Last time we looked some of the reasons why Kim Kardashian: Hollywood has become one of the biggest mobile games of the year, with annual earnings expected to reach $200m. Now we’re going to let the kids tell us what they think. We spoke with four Kim Kardashian: Hollywood fans to ask them what got them playing the game, what they thought about it and whether they’ve spent any real money on it.

The kids are Melaine and Amy, both 16 and from England, Remington (Remy), who’s 13 and from America, and Lena who is 15 and lives in Norway. All the girls had been playing the game for between three and four weeks.

How did you hear about the game?

Melaine: My sister started playing and then I asked people on Twitter if I should play it and I gave it a shot.

Amy: It was trending on Twitter

Remy: Twitter followers reposting or posting about the game, like memes or what they are on the famous scale.

Lena: I was following an Instagram user while she told her followers about the game.

What do you like about the game?

Melaine: I love how you can fly to different places and that there are so many different things to do. I like the fact there is variety, for example the arguments with Willow Pape etc. I also love playing with friends.

Amy: I like the outfits on the game as they’re similar to what the Kardashian’s have worn in real life, or they’re similar to what other celebrities have been spotted wearing. I also like that you have a ‘rival’ on the game, Willow Pape, as it makes you want to work harder on it and out-stage a virtual character because you want to be the higher, more professional person.

Remy: The fact Kim asks you to be a social climber and date anyone of any sex to become famous, like she kinda did.

Lena: I like the game because it’s really girly, nice characters, the animations and I’ve always had a dream, and that is to go to LA and be famous!

What don’t you like?

Melaine: I don’t like how expensive everything is especially as energy runs out quick and you need stars to buy energy and they’re too expensive. I also don’t like that I don’t have my own private jet! Oh and the fact that one of the tasks ‘go on three dates’ doesn’t work; I’ve been on a bunch and it doesn’t even go up one! A lot of people have had this problem though.

Amy: I don’t like how long it takes for your energy to increase as it takes a whole five minutes just for one bolt and this means you can’t complete as many tasks during photo shoots/appearances as quickly as you’d like. I also don’t like the fact that you have to use an extreme amount of K Coins to just know somebody in the industry’s name!

Remy: That I have to wait for energy, I have to spent my money on stars, and that I don’t have a “make a sex tape to become famous “option [sarcasm].

Lena: I don’t like it when it takes a long time to get more energy, and that I am totally addicted! The clothes are also very expensive.

Is there anything you’ve spent real money on?

Melaine: I’ve spent about £20 to £30. It’s on energy, mostly. I’ve also bought some clothes.

Amy: Nothing.

Remy: Nothing.

Lena: I have never spent real money on the game, and I don’t think that I am gonna do it either

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the game?

Melaine: I love the idea she has came up with because it’s truly unique and props to her for going ahead with it!

Amy: The game really gives you an insight of how celebrities get to live as when you’re doing an appearance you get paid for just holding a drink or something else which is mint!

Remy: When do I actually become famous off this game?

Lena: sometimes, my friends want to watch me play because their thinks it is fun. I was never a huge fan of Kim, but I like her style and her clothes.

Want to know more? Sign up for our weekly newsletter! Each issue includes our four favourite casual gaming articles of the week, along with great presentations to watch and Twitter accounts to follow. All for free and sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up to This Week in Casual Games here.

]]>http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/09/25/why-kids-love-kim-kardashian-hollywood/feed/0http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/09/25/why-kids-love-kim-kardashian-hollywood/How the Kim Kardashian Game Will Make $200m!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dubitplatform/Vgpb/~3/UOKtQ6oSqxI/
http://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/2014/09/15/how-the-kim-kardasihan-game-will-make-200m/#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 15:39:26 +0000Matthew Warnefordhttp://www.dubitlimited.com/blog/?p=4972Read More...]]>How does a game starring Kim Kardashian, one that many journalists are laughing at, stand to generate $200m by the end of the year? We wanted to find out, so we spent a couple of hours playing Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, meaning you don’t have to. But we’ve not been doing it alone. We’ve also been speaking with four teenagers about their experiences with the game to find out what they love, what they hate and how they found out about it in the first place.

Kim isn’t known for her coding skills but according to the Wall St Journal she has been, and still is, heavily involved in the game’s development. Between them Kim and Glu Mobile (the developer) have managed to create one of the biggest mobile gaming success stories of the year. We wanted to know how they turned all those players into payers!

Keeping up with the Kardasihan

Before we get to its monetization techniques let’s look at the game. Here’s a summary of my first hour as Kim’s new BFF:

After creating my avatar (who can be male or female) I arrived in Beverly Hills. I start by working at a boutique and am told to perform some basic duties, like folding clothes and shutting the shop – it’s here that I’m introduced to the game’s mechanics. In a nutshell it extends no further than tapping the screen to complete tasks. To fold the shirts you tap a circle next to the shirts and they’re folded. Want to shut the shop? Touch the door. This uses one unit of energy (lightning) and I’m rewarded with a small amount of soft currency (dollars) and experience points. Every task in the game is completed by performing the same action, some require me to use more energy (touch more than once) but that’s as deep as it gets – Kim Kardashian: Hollywood has more in common with Farmville than you’d think.

As I leave the shop Kim appears and asks me to re-open it. I’m presented with a couple of conversation options but ultimately they all lead to me opening the shop. It’s at this point that Kim speaks. The game uses her actual voice and she seems to have laid down quite a few lines of dialogue, although she often only speaks the first sentence. My character and Kim hit it off so Kim suggests I join her on a photo shoot. At the venue she surprises me with a shoot of my own, which costs energy to complete. By now Mrs Kardashian West has also introduced me to how to progress up the game’s popularity ladder – basically you date, network and do jobs to earn experience points and boost your fame.

This pattern continues throughout the game and after about half-an-hour you start to realise that your resources are running low and you’re left to either grind through small jobs or pay money for hard currency (Ks). Ks allow you to buy energy, clothes and to charm people – Kim tells you that charming people often gets the best results. During the rest of the hour I’m presented with new challenges (dates, shoots, promotional work) and get introduced to new characters such as managers, photographers and Willow Pape, more on her later.

Seven Things Kim Kardashian Has Done Right

The K Factor

No, we’re not talking about viral growth rate, not yet anyway, (joke for monetization experts). We’re talking about Kim. This woman can’t fail to make money, whether it’s her wedding, sex tape, or just turning up a nightclub, it’s like dollars fall from the sky for her. Having her attached to the game and promoting it is the biggest reason for the game’s success – there’s even proof of this. In February 2014 Glu Mobile released almost an identical game called Stardom Hollywood and, relatively speaking, nobody cared. But when it was rebranded it become one of the highest grossing games of the year. Kim is also involved in the game’s marketing and frequently tweets about it. This is a woman with 22.4m Twitter followers!

It’s easy to turn your nose up at celeb-backed games like this but Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is a well produced game. It’s also a very knowing pastiche of celebrity culture. While its players are fans of Kim they’re also aware of the fakery and its clear Glu Mobile knows this. It wouldn’t be going too far to suggest that people are more inclined to pay if the game they are playing feels like a quality (expensive) product.

Jobs and More Jobs

Although jobs are the main way to earn experience and money they are also the biggest drain on energy, and they keep on coming. Whether it’s Kim, your manager or your dates, there is always someone giving you something to do. But it’s not just about draining energy; jobs also give you a reason to come back. During my first hour with the game I was told that my photo shoot would take an hour to develop. If I stopped playing this would give me a reason to start playing again in an hour and I’d probably do more than just check on my shoot.

Push Notifications

More games should utilise push notifications, but they need to be used well. In this case you’re reminded of events being completed and other news with a cheesy musical sting and given a reason to come back. They’re not needy or pushy; they provide valid reasons to come back and the sting stands out from the usual notification noises.

Social Currency

Many games like this use your friends and social networks to improve virality, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is no different. What it does well is providing you a reason to link your networks and invite friends. As well as being able to chart your progress against them on the game’s scoreboard you can also date them in the game. It’s the same as Farmville having friends ask each other to visit their farms, but much more personal. You can’t just ask for players to link their social networks, you need to give them a reason to. The game also uses the well worn tick of suggesting you share your accomplishments through social networks. Want to know how well that’s working? In the time it’s taken to write this sentence 25 posts from the game have gone up on Twitter. Here, have a look. Notice that the posts don’t just promote the game but they also include a link to download it from.

Probably the smartest, or at least the most original use of social networks is how Kim Kardashian: Hollywood uses them in a transmedia sense. In the game you’re asked to follow various characters, like a journalist. This journalist then sends in-game tweets for your character to read in the in-game version of Twitter. But here’s the smart bit, you also follow these characters on the real Twitter, providing you’ve linked the accounts. So even when a player isn’t playing the game, they are still getting tweets from characters in their real social networks. Plenty of games ask you to follow their Twitter and Facebook accounts, but Kim Kardashian: Hollywood uses this to blur the lines between and the game and real life. Or IRL, as it’s fans would probably say. Tweets by @StarNews_Ray

Willow Pape

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood features one of the best video game characters OF ALL TIME! Don’t believe me? Wait ‘till you meet Willow Pape. Willow’s purpose is to be a bitch and she does it perfectly, Kotaku has even compared her to Pokemon’s Gary Oak. She first appeared to accuse me of hitting on her boyfriend (I wasn’t) and then started spreading dirt about me through social media. I got my own back in the end but essentially Willow is the girl that all girls hate and she spends the whole game getting in your face – she’s the perfect in-game enemy for teenage girls.

Kim’s name might be on the game but Willow (who isn’t a real person) is the star. Want proof? A quick search online and you’ll find countless numbers of Willow-inspired memes, gifs and funny tweets. But how is Willow important for the game’s monetization? Essentially she gives the game purpose. You can take part in photo shoots, parties and dates all day long but essentially they’re hollow activities – having an enemy to battle provides a greater motivation to keep playing and paying. Then there’s all the fan activity – a player might never spend a single dollar in the game but if they’re generating Willow Pape gifs and spreading them across the internet they are helping your customer acquisition which ultimately improves your bottom line.

It Makes Money from Non-payers

Players who don’t want to spend real money for their in-game K dollars have the option to receive the in-game currency by taking part in affiliate promotions. These include activities such as completing surveys, watching videos and signing up for promotions. I opted to watch a video about another mobile game and got rewarded with some in-game credit. Not all of these are suitable for children, or even possible, one option was to sign up for a betting account! Still, it’s another way to monetize players without them having to part with real money. We’d just recommend that the promotions are suitable for your audience.

Paying is Easy…at First

You start the game with a decent amount of hard and soft currency, enough to buy some clothes, charm some characters and progress smoothly through game. Then, before the first hour the need to buy in-game currency becomes apparent (unless you choose to wait or grind). The technique of giving players a taste of what they need to pay for later is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It also helps that in-game items are inexpensive, with a pair of shoes and adopting a cat costing £1.20 each. It’s well balanced too, with the need to spend not coming too soon.

Next time we will speak to fans of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood to find out what it is they got them playing Kim’s game and if they’ve helped contribute to the game’s bottom line.

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“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

I imagine a similar picture plays out across the country today: children wonder why their parents don’t understand Minecraft, why they don’t watch ‘TV’ on YouTube, and why they still send SMS and email!

It’s easy to see how The Guardian reached their conclusion, Ofcom said: “six year olds claim to have the same understanding of communications technology as 45 year olds.” But even this is deceptive. The children weren’t asked if they were more or less tech-savvy than a 45 year old, what they, and all the respondents, did was complete a survey to obtain a ‘Digital Quotient’ score. This wasn’t so much a test, but a series of questions asking respondents how confident they felt about the use of technology. It’s almost like the question was setup to spot misplaced hubris!
Unsurprisingly, children don’t know what they don’t know (I’m reminded of Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns speech) and feel very confident, scoring as highly as most 45 year olds. For the curious you can take a simplified version of the test on the Ofcom website.

I have ten-year-old relative who would consider himself tech savvy, solely based on his ability to find things on the internet, watch and upload videos to YouTube, and build in Minecraft. But he’s also very proficient at downloading viruses and browser toolbar plugins! He can’t be the only one!

Parents understand that technology is complicated, whereas young children don’t. The DQ score is less a measure of competence and more of an indication of confidence.

Today’s children are growing up in a digital walled garden; their digital devices are the appliances (washing machines, and dishwashers) of my youth. I have no idea how my washing machine works, and kids have no idea how their iPads work.

My first computer didn’t have any games, I copied the code from magazines. I tinkered and made things; my computer was a tool box and building something from nothing was fun. Those early experiences are responsible for my career today. But I worry that children growing up with iPads and iPhones will never have the same kind of experiences. Are we making a generation of children who can use technology, but never understand it, like me and my washing machine? And is that even a bad thing? (I think it is!)

I’m worried that current technology, on the whole, isn’t creating an army of tech savvy pre-schoolers, it’s equipping children to be tech-first consumers, or more importantly, overconfident tech-first consumers.

It should be noted that this isn’t meant as a criticism of Ofcom’s report, as what it’s done is highlight the effect of growing up with technology, the digital natives. It’s going to be interesting to see where this trend leads.

Want to know more? Sign up for our weekly newsletter! Each issue includes our four favourite casual gaming articles of the week, along with great presentations to watch and Twitter accounts to follow. All for free and sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up to This Week in Casual Games here.